Babe Ruth was known for his power at the plate, often accumulating more runs in a season than entire teams combined during his Hall of Fame career. He won seven World Series rings, hit 714 home runs and is regarded as maybe the greatest baseball player of all-time.
He also might not have ever existed, according to Chicago Cubs outfielder Pete Crow-Armstrong.
Crow-Armstrong, 24, shared his wild theory during a recent appearance on Kristin Cavallari’s “Let’s Be Honest” podcast, where he was asked to share an “unpopular opinion.”
“This is going to be crazy,” Crow-Armstrong began. “Babe Ruth never existed is one that I like. I heard some pitcher with the Mariners — what’s his name — [Tayler Saucedo], I think he did some podcast on Zoom when he was, like, going down the rabbit hole with somebody about how Babe Ruth never existed.”
Crow-Armstrong didn’t offer much in terms of evidence but still cracked a joke about how Ruth was too good for his era.
“We always talk about how the game’s evolving,” he continued. “People might as well have been underhanding the ball to that guy and he’s regarded still as one of the best players ever, and we might as well dive further into it and be like, ‘Well maybe he just never existed.’”
Saucedo, 33, is now a relief pitcher for the Los Angeles Angels, but he talked about the theory during a 2024 episode of the “Marine Layer Podcast,” saying it was a topic of conversation in the Mariners’ bullpen.
“There’s not a lot of videos of him playing,” Saucedo said. “It’s just like one of the same videos that we always see, him trotting around or doing something. We’re pretty strong on that. He doesn’t exist.”
Saucedo also shared another controversial baseball opinion: That legendary Boston Red Sox slugger Ted Williams didn’t actually hit a 502-foot home run commemorated at Fenway Park by a red painted seat where it supposedly landed.
Saucedo explained that during a trip to play the Red Sox, he and some of his bullpen mates went out to the famous seat to get a better look at the view.
“We sat out there and were like, ‘No chance,’” he said. “No chance back then was anybody hitting this. Guys like [former Red Sox star] David Ortiz with metal bats can’t put it out there. There’s just no way they’re doing that back in the day with whatever kind of wood they were using.”
The theories about Ruth and Williams may sound outlandish, but as Saucedo pointed out, there’s a lot of down time in baseball to get conspiratorial.
“You get a lot of time in the bullpen, you’re going to cover pretty much every topic you can,” he said.
